Is this normal for a 2yo?

[WitBeyondMeasure]

Can anybody relate with personal experience about two year olds?

She is our third kid and she is nothing like the older two, although to be fair they were also polar opposites to each other.

She has always been very short tempered. And when she is slightly aggrieved - for example she dropped her cereal on the floor - there is absolutely no sliding escalation. She goes from being perfectly fine to aggressively hysterical and red faced, irrational and screaming. Whenever something like this happens I try to crouch down next to her and put my hand on her back and say “don’t worry, we can pick them up” and start doing so, and then she’ll help pick them up... but it’s like it doesn’t occur to her that this isn’t the end of the world every single time.

She’s also dropped her nap (kill me now) so come her old nap time she is just insanely cross and agitated and the only way she will chill out is if I leave her in a room on her own (door open I’m not locking her up or anything) just chilling with the tv, but she won’t chill with anyone there and if anyone walks into the room it’s lose her shit time again...

Maybe I was super lucky with the first two. Ds1 was really mischievous but never a grump! Dd1 was so laid back she just didn’t care. Dd2 is like a temper tantrum dynamite ready to go off at any time for anything. I love this kid so much but I’m walking on egg shells! Is this the terrible twos? Although she’s been this angry forever... or is she just not of a sunny disposition?

Socially, when she’s in a good mood she’s very sociable. She runs up to other kids and instigates play, she waves at random kids and tries to talk to them when we’re out. Her language is at or beyond where it should be and physically she tries really hard to keep up with the older two and usually manages... I’m really just trying to work out whether this is ages and stages, personality or potentially something else?

(P.s. I'm sorry it the text comes out funny, I copied my post from a text I sent to a friend but had to edit it to remove names and swear words!)

Sounds normal to me.My DS was like this when he was little,complete nutter and flew off the handle without a moments notice.Happy to report he is now a lovely?if still quick tempered (like his mum!) 8 year old.

Oh and also completely different to my laid back first child.

My first was like this - everything was the end of the world. She likes/ liked to be in control so anything that deviated from that really upset her. She’s much better now but she’s a highly strung little girl. She feels everything very deeply.

Second child is totally different so I think it’s probably just temperament.

Sounds like she just has a different personality to your other two and is more short tempered. I wouldn't expect her to rationalise much herself at age 2 and it doesn't sound like she has a complete meltdown if you are able to explain to her and she understands? Also the 2nd bit to me sounds like she is a tired grump who maybe wasn't ready to drop her nap? My 3 have different personalities completely and have to be approached in totally different ways over things

Thank you for the responses, I'm very relieved to hear them!
I find she plays nicely with each of the older two individually but as a three out middle child tends to push her out which makes her cross - understandably so.
I'm trying to encourage them to include her because she does lose interest within minutes - but I'm also trying to protect the feeling of our middle child who has only just been accepted into the grown up kids games and doesn't want to be derailed..

Gosh it's tricky!

Sounds fairly normal unfortunately. My Ds2 was like this, lived life in the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Very early talker too.

However, we are currently looking at getting a very late diagnosis of dyspraxia (He's now 17) due to issues that have only become apparent over the last couple of years. Looking at the possible issues it can cause, it did make me wonder if the physical effort of trying to do everything was in fact the cause of a lot of the tantrums (and the clumsy dropping of stuff in the first place) had we only recognised it at the time.

We've picked up on it more now due to some mental health issues and him now telling us he has hypermobile joints.

Not saying that dyspraxia might be the case for your DD at all. She sounds clever and I think when they are clever life can be extra frustrating! :o

Oh and my 17 year old has been the most laid back teenager ever. he's extraordinarily lovely (he was terrible from about 11-13 though). He was obsessed with fairness at your DDs age and this continued all through his childhood. he's about to go and study Politics at Uni...

@Farmerswifey12 I absolutely agree she isn't ready to drop her nap! But I cannot convince her so!
We've always done a mild form of sleep training where we go in and reassure and lay them back down. Even going at is heavier she would sit and scream in her room for over an hour - we went in to lay her back down during that time.
Previously I'd say "let's go nanight" and she would pick her toys up, say bye to everyone and walk upstairs. She's never cried in her bed (other than when she woke up when she was younger and couldn't talk) and I really didn't want to ruin that for a nap when she will chill out and maybe doze, if we leave her alone!

She does do absolute melt downs. The other day I made her a jumper outside. She screamed for an hour. Literally an hour. Today we were trying on shoes because her feet have grown and she did the same but only for half an hour because I took her wellies off. We've also had similar for making her put her shoes on the right feet...
It tends to be if I'm the one to piss her off she will not settle with me, but she will settle instantly with her dad. And then vice versa, if he had upset her by making some unreasonable demand such as wearing clothes or changing her bum she will not settle with him, only me.

Sadly he works 50+ hours per week so if I upset her she escalates because she hasn't got someone she isn't cross with to turn to.

@WaxOnFeckOff I'm so pleased to hear your DS is doing so well and I love the fairness obsession! My DS is the same.
Our eldest was (at the time) a nightmare at this age for mischief. If we told him not to do something he seemed to take it as a personal challenge to not only do it but to take it to the next level - don't climb on the coffee table, half an hour later he's on top of the kallax..
Now he is the nicest boy I've ever met and he's only five. Considerate and polite and friendly (although side note does whining have an expiration date? This kid is going for an Oscar!)

Sounds exactly like my youngest. She used to burst into floods of tears over very minor things. As she has grown it has become clear that she prefers order and things to go as planned and that is just her temperament. Complete polar opposite to her older sister who thrives on chaos.

Sorry posted too soon. I try to remember how he was at two to how he is now and remind myself this probably isn't permanent. It helps,

@Vintagegoth that's good to know! I'm an organised chaos sort of person. I like to know what's happening and when, but I don't get stressed out about minor details. If that's what she needs down the line I can totally meet that.
When I get stressed I organise to reduce the chaos so I can kind of relate to that

Ah that's tough OP. Sometimes DH would take DS2 out for a drive just to get him to sleep in the afternoon (he also dropped his nap at 2) a few days a week and that seemed to help.

he would also bear a grudge. He loved Kipper the dog stories, I'd gone to great length to get a stuffed plush Kipper toy. He'd decided to have a tantrum about something or other just as the post arrived with said Kipper toy. I quickly opened it as I thought the sight of it would bring him out of the tantrum. Nope. he was in such a funk that he threw Kipper away and wouldn't look at it. And I mean never. DS1 ended up quite happily with it instead. he had nothing against stuffed toys in general either.

DS2 used to bang his head on the pavement simply because he'd decided he wanted to go left in the circuit round the estate rather than right - he could argue black was white as well. Yes, it's a good thing to remember that all things are temporary.

I have a two year old and she is absolutely wild. Her temper tantrums are something else. If anything doesn’t go her way it is seriously the end of the world.

I made a thread a few days ago about her and was reassured it was normal. I hope one day I’ll look back and laugh but oh my it’s scary at the moment. I genuinely feel scared of my toddler!

Her older brother is/was the most chilled out child ever. I think he only had a handful of tantrums. She had a handful by 9am.

I'm so so glad it's not just her! I must have been lucky with the older two (although dd1 is starting with the attitude it's not descending into tantrums yet!)
Three five and under is not a walk in the park, although arguably it's easier than when I had three aged three and under!

Here are a few examples of her behaviour from my own thread..

1. I’ll say good morning and she’ll do an annoyed groan.
2. If my OH (her dad) gets her out of her cot in the morning instead of me she will throw the biggest tantrum which can last hours. Screaming and crying and throwing herself on the floor.
3. I’ll offer her 3 choices for breakfast. She’ll ask for x. Sometimes she wants a mixture of x and y. When she gets to the table she will demand z and if I say no she’ll toss the whole thing on the floor.
4. After dinner she asks for a yoghurt. I’ll bring her one and she’ll say “no two!” If I refuse she throws the yogurt everywhere.
5. In the car she will request her favourite song. Sometimes I don’t want to listen to it over and over so I’ll say no mummy’s song just now. And she’ll kick and scream and tantrum for the entire journey.
6. Hitting and scratching if she doesn’t get her own way.

My eldest is exactly the same at 2.5! Unfortunately she follows me for temperament 100%. I'm an awful control freak, and it's taken her reactions to life so far to actually make me realise how awful I can be. My mother must've hated me..!

@flamed12 what is with the two of everything?
Mine asks for a cracker or yogurt or anything and expects one in each hand.. and then she gets two because I'm so bloody worn down by this point, the other two went two. Suddenly my shopping bill is catastrophic and the cupboards are bare!

She's caught onto the whole snapping it in half thing too 😂

She's caught onto the whole snapping it in half thing too 😂

God, DS is clever but took a loooong time to catch on to that. he must have been about 10 when he was kicking off as he only had 6 slices of pizza instead of 8 (small individual pizza, i'd just cut it into 6 not 8). So I had to take it away and cut two of the pieces in half and then handed it back and he was perfectly happy

@WaxOnFeckOff I'm jealous. She knows exactly what I'm doing when I chop them up. My five year old still hasn't caught on but as soon as the 2yo can tell them I'm screwed!

Mine are only 13 months apart and DS1 just used to sit and raise one eyebrow without actually saying anything....

You, however are screwed....:o

@WaxOnFeckOff I know!
Dd1 the other day I told her if she didn't eat her lovingly Home made dinner she would be hungry. (I'm bigging this up. It was a homemade sausage roll. She likes sausage rolls, thought I was on to a winner.. evidently she defected the pulverised veggies)
She just looked at me, raised her eyebrow and pushed her plate away.
With the tone of ultimate disdain she declared "I'd rather be hungry"

She's three. Bloody three.

Ha ha. When DS2 was a similar age, he was hacked off about something and i went into his room to see him with various pretend play bottles and police dress up stuff. I asked if everything was okay and he turned around slowly, looked me straight in the eyes with his face all screwed up and eyes all narrowed and said very deliberately, "i'm making plans...."

@WaxOnFeckOff I love it! My eldest is very similar 😂
So it seems like the good news is all kids are bloody weird from time to time!